[Foreword: This post is now as complete as it is going to be. Dawn's are topical rather than verbatim. Matt Parsons gave more detail in his explanation about the possible risks of switching insurance carriers because the cost seemed lower, but I believe that the main point given here is the important one for most of us. The trustees, of course, need to have the details well in hand.]
Mark Hall, Loris Drive: To John Festa: On the phone--will the name be displayed? Will the name of the township be displayed?
John Festa: Yes.
Mark: So it is at least the name and Mantua Township.
Sue Skrovan, Wayne Road: I wasn't going to say anything, but I forgot to mention one thing about the garden club. Our annual plant sale will be June 7 from 9-2 here. If people have plants to donate, please dig them up. We will pick them up or they can drop them off. It is one of our biggest fund raisers.
Carole Pollard, Allyn Road: I think there is a lot of back and forth and back and forth and fretting about not knowing how to do this about the school building. First of all, you have had estimates at least two times from reputable people. Marie presented a plan. Cal Brant and Troy Construction presented a plan twice over. That has all been done with how much it would cost.
Todd Peetz is perfectly capable of conducting focus groups. From what I can tell, it is one of his skill sets which nobody else here has. I have noticed that we seem to be on our better behavior with him, so it might be beneficial to have him do this.
I think we have everything right here that we need without more wasting of time and gnashing and wailing and fretting about what we don't know how to do. We have people right here who can do it and not charge us any amount of money.
Moody and Nolan will start from scratch, which is what they told you when they wanted to hear what we want. People have been saying what they want for years. You might as well just listen to them, because they have been telling us. Do you really mean it when/that you want to hear the residents and use volunteers? Do it. Just do it and let's get started.
Dave Pollard, S.R. 82: I guess about the school, it is almost repetitive, but Jason, how many times do you plow a field in the spring before you plant it? We have heard this for years and we have heard it from you for years. You have had plenty of time. Previous trustees have been criticized for looking things over and studying things. You have had almost 5 years. It's time to get off the pot.
Old Frost: How detailed is the estimate you got? Does Marie have a copy of that for chip and seal? I have a feeling it is incomplete. I doubt that it took into consideration moving the telephone line.
Jason: They don't do that. The quote was taken in with us doing all of the ditching and tree removal. Widening the road would be us. [Hmmm. I bet that road grader Jason sold would come in handy for that.] He quoted us 18 feet and .05 mile
The only place that is 18 feet is at Pioneer Trail for about 300 feet. We probably have to discuss those things with the county engineer. His quote is for time, materials, 18 feet, double chip and primer coat.
Dave: Whatever expense will have the cost of our guys added in.
Jason: We never add that in. [Blogger: When the road crew was working on the school, you should have heard the outrage aimed at Vic for not counting that as part of the expense. There was not a hiccup about this.]
Dave: If you are going to work on that road, Mr. Festa might have a better idea. The people back there except for two households want it and the rest don't. [Blogger: I am not sure if my notes are exactly right on this. Seven households are on the road. Two of them want paving of some kind. The rest do not.] If you don't do it right you are going to spend more on it.
As far as wanting to hear more about Center School, if you come to the MaRSI annual meeting, you will have a chance to talk with four highly qualified men who have seen the school and know what it might take. If you come to the meeting, you should learn a lot.
The last thing: nothing had to be sacrificed from any township program to work on that building before. Nothing should have to be sacrificed now to begin working on it. The sexton and zoning inspector just moved in and are basically just squatting in the east room. I realize that there will be all kinds of stuff thrown up about what we have to do, but look into what we actually need to do.
Steve Zielinski, S.R. 82 asked about whether a township employee was doing the recording, and he criticized me because I had mistakenly said that he did not give his address at the last meeting. He corrected that at this one.
Dawn Pechman, S.R. 82: About the minutes for public comment [at the last meeting]: They said I want Wi-Fi in the Town Hall. That is not correct at all. I wanted to know if there is a hard wire in here to get DSL. There is a small camera that will fit into your hand that will cost about $75.00. There is a guy . . . who would be able to do that.
Dawn asked about the meeting on April 29.
Jason: We are trying to get that set up.
Dawn: the three of you are going to try to decide how to manage focus groups?
She asked Marie about a fund. Answer: Permissive license tax.
Matt Parsons, Wayne Road: [This was in regard to the insurance presentation.] I want to caution you not to look at the bottom line as a reason to jump to another carrier. I highly question that if you have a claim with them and leave them [that the claim would be handled.]
[What is in my notes is in sequence, and I believe it was Matt still talking. Right now, the day before the next meeting, and with a cram-packed two weeks between, it's a little hard to regain the context.]
Like Dave Pollard said on Old Frost, if you have that many people who don't want it, you might be able to use that on crack sealing and do all of it.
The coverage can cost you more in the long run.
Vic: That was my concern also. Our current agency is very heavily hooked up with legal. They have stepped up to the plate when we needed them.
Dan Cozzens, Winchell Road: About the school. You have a relatively small project with the Town Hall, and you can't seem to get it done. Concentrate on one thing and get it done and go on to the next project. Also, I think that comments should be directed to all trustees, not just one because your opinions are all valued the same. [Blogger: The problem with the Township Hall isn't so much doing it as deciding to do it. Ditto with the school.]
Bud Foster, Center and Diagonal Road corner: All the memorial are installed. Only two things are left, and then it is done. We have had a lot of great comments on it, too.
To Matt Parsons: To piggy back on that, I mentioned that there would be advertising. We took care of putting the ads in the papers. They are in The Villager and the Community Journal today.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Trustees 4-17: Dithering
Foreword: This post I hope will be relatively brief, except, again, for the spots where only a close semi-transcript can even come close to getting the flavor and character of things.
There was some small discussion about the rental rates posted on the township website. They will remain as is until June.
The Bogden rental, which left the annex such a mess: Vic asked whether the trustees wanted to go to small claims court. Even if there were a judgment, the township might well receive no payment for the claim.
Jason favored going to court on the principle of it, "almost more of proving a point."
John Festa agreed with that and thought that inability to pay could be worked out with community service.
The Website:
Marie has put together a spread sheet that she wants to check with our current budget.
Jason asked for feedback about the website.
John Festa: I have looked into a video camera. They are around $300.00. If we do get a camera, we will have to mount it on one of these poles and then we will have to do something about powering it because the batteries may wipe out. I will continue moving forward on that and check with Best Buys.
John Festa: He continues to be concerned about the phones and gave an explanation that sounded convoluted, to your faithful blogger. He had talked to the supervisor, and he read from the e-mail. Time Warner Cable cannot install the requested phone numbers because of the conflict with the Aurora and Mantua rate [?] centers.
There was discussion about that. The numbers apparently go out one way and come back another, and the number that would show up on caller ID if a township person answered a resident's call would not be the same as the number the resident called.
Jason thought that was a non issue.
Vic asked if the cable could just be put in.
John Festa: I will make copies of this and give them to you. We can decide at the next meeting. We have no way to save any money.
Vic described how the jurisdictions [for want of a better word] form a kind of patchwork from Parkwood to partway down Mantua Center Road.
Marie's concern is about somehow losing the original township number.
Public Comment was next.
There was some small discussion about the rental rates posted on the township website. They will remain as is until June.
The Bogden rental, which left the annex such a mess: Vic asked whether the trustees wanted to go to small claims court. Even if there were a judgment, the township might well receive no payment for the claim.
Jason favored going to court on the principle of it, "almost more of proving a point."
John Festa agreed with that and thought that inability to pay could be worked out with community service.
The Website:
Marie has put together a spread sheet that she wants to check with our current budget.
Jason asked for feedback about the website.
John Festa: I have looked into a video camera. They are around $300.00. If we do get a camera, we will have to mount it on one of these poles and then we will have to do something about powering it because the batteries may wipe out. I will continue moving forward on that and check with Best Buys.
John Festa: He continues to be concerned about the phones and gave an explanation that sounded convoluted, to your faithful blogger. He had talked to the supervisor, and he read from the e-mail. Time Warner Cable cannot install the requested phone numbers because of the conflict with the Aurora and Mantua rate [?] centers.
There was discussion about that. The numbers apparently go out one way and come back another, and the number that would show up on caller ID if a township person answered a resident's call would not be the same as the number the resident called.
Jason thought that was a non issue.
Vic asked if the cable could just be put in.
John Festa: I will make copies of this and give them to you. We can decide at the next meeting. We have no way to save any money.
Vic described how the jurisdictions [for want of a better word] form a kind of patchwork from Parkwood to partway down Mantua Center Road.
Marie's concern is about somehow losing the original township number.
Public Comment was next.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Trustees April 17: Retitled: Plausible stalling---again
Foreword: This has not been proofread, except as I catch my very bad typing. But the content is here.
8:50: Jason: Township Hall updates. Jason reported that on the previous Thursday the trustees had spent about 45 minutes doing a walk around and reviewing quotes. Except for some window sill areas on the north, south, and perhaps west sides of the building, the wood looks fairly good and has dried out well.
The east side of the building, however, where the fire escape is, is another matter and will need work
Jason asked Vic about the road crew helping with getting some boards off.
Vic: It snowed that day, and they had a class the same day. He agreed that the east was where most of the work had to be done and said that we needed to locate the money to do it.
John Festa reported on something that Barb Herbold had located that was like truck bedliner, but a ceramic. [As it turns out, the product is Rhino Shield, and customer/user comments are far from universally favorable, according to someone who checked.]
Jason allowed as how no matter the option chosen, money was going to have to be spent. [Blogger: Why, with the offer from Steve Coon to do the paint at his expense, is anyone looking for other options--which will cost money, duh!]
Then there was some discussion with Marie about an appropriations status report, which was located on the back table where apparently Jason had left it when he came in.
Spring Cleanup has been advertised in the Community Journal. Tires will be taken, maximum of 10 per person. Portage County Recycling will advertise that program separately.
John Festa asked about the expense: the county supplies the dumpsters, but the rest is on us, as he put it..
Jason commented that Stacy Turner had sent him an e-mail address for public notices in The Weekly Villager.
Next, Jason reported on the proposed meeting regarding the school building with Moody and Nolan. Their position was that they could not comment further without knowing what to present, so Jason sent them what Todd Peetz had done. They want to come to a/the meeting and gather information.
[Let me get a grip on this. Jason asked Todd Peetz to conduct several meetings and a survey and then report on the findings. That came to 4 meetings, counting the Chamber of Commerce meeting that Claudia James handled. Now he takes Todd's work and gives it to Moody and Nolan? This is ethical?]
[Then, back to square one.] Jason: So my question is, how do we start? Do we begin with the focus groups or maybe get together with 2-3 architects and explain what we are going to do with focus groups? We want them to be one step ahead of us. [Who is "them" here? And I think the job of an architect is to follow the lead of the client in meeting the client's needs.] Maybe if they [who is "they"?] came to these meetings, maybe they will come back after the focus groups and we present them with what might be done.
[Jason! Listen up!!!!! The focus groups are free. Urban architects cost money. Architects cost money, no matter where they are. The preliminary study proposed--the second or third one, did you notice--by Moody and Nolan comes to $17,000 plus. And that's without turning a shovel, figuratively speaking, and we keep hearing that the township doesn't have any money. But maybe we won't notice that everything possible has been spent everyplace else to prove that we can't afford the school building? News flash: We've noticed. Lots of us. A long time ago. What do you think prompted the blunt criticism of you in the survey section of Todd's report?]
Jason, continuing: If the focus groups say renovate the first floor, and we say to the architects, provide us with a proposal, here are the specifications---those are just some ideas rattling around in my head because I am not a project planner.
[We noticed a long time ago that Jason is not a project planner. A year ago, Brant Carpentry, Troy Construction, and Hummel Construction all submitted estimates which amounted to proposals about how to renovate the whole first floor. All of them have experience planning projects. They were all ignored. And remember that in 2009 Jason claimed that he would work to get us into the old school. This is about the fourth new beginning on the same ground, which by now should be embarrassingly familiar to Mr. Carlton.]
Vic: I would like to see us follow through with some groups. Hold off on this meeting and follow some of the suggestions from Todd Peetz. It might be best to go to follow through on that, on those meetings.
John Festa: My thoughts are I don't want to drag this out. If these folks are going to come out and talk, we should ask them how to go about it. What will it cost? We already know that the community wants to keep it. How much is it going to cost and what are we going to sacrifice on the other [needs].
We have to stop beating a dead horse. We have this building here that needs money and we are searching for nickles and dimes. Are we going to sacrifice our roads? The people are entitled to know. If the community wants to keep it, fine. Let them know what it will cost.
[For a while there, these comments seemed about to make sense. But here we are again, with the not very subtle implication that the cost of the building will convince the community to ditch it.]
Focus groups are fine, but we have already done that. [Thank you, trustee Festa. Truly.]
What are you going to charge and are we going about it the right way.
Jason: I have been working with two people at Moody Nolan. They were going to come and do a presentation. But they said, "We want to hear from you guys." I can appreciate that. They are not sure where we are at with the project. [At the beginning!!!! And why?] I can only convey so much. I agree that we need to move forward but I am not a project planner.
[OK, setting aside my outrage, I honestly do not know what Jason hopes to get by repeating this phrase so often. Sympathy? He is not a child. And it's not as if he's only five feet tall and distraught because he isn't six feet eight and able to dunk a basket ball. That's kind of understandable if you're a child. But signing up to do a man's job, and saying, repeatedly, that you're not up to it doesn't cut it. Stress reveals character. Or its lack.]
John Festa: We may take the recommendations that Todd Peetz made. I would like to put together a group to put pencil to paper and see what it will cost. Ask people in the township who are in the business like Benner and Hummel. I would ask if they would consider donating a little of their time and come up with some numbers.
Jason: So the good news is that we are in agreement that the committees are a good idea.
Vic: Yes. We should probably set up a special meeting to put things together.
Jason: What committees should there be? What are their roles?[Todd identified them!]
John Festa: Can we just have the meeting and set up a couple of these committees?
Jason: We are going off the recommendations of Regional Planning and show them we are going forward.
Vic: Maybe we can get some information from Todd Peetz on how to do this.
Marie: Since there is an election coming up on May 6, you might put up a notice about the committees.
Jason: So should we still have a meeting on the 29th? I have not advertised for anything yet.
John Festa: [I think.] I don't know, Vic, if we can get committees together yet. We can do some foundation work [And will that take another four years?] Report back every three weeks and have a special meeting every month. [OK, reader, think about that. How long does it sound as if that will take? How much more time to be eaten up until the building is paid off and the two junior trustees can outvote Vic and sell it out from under us. Five households on Old Frost Road don't want paving--but the trustees are going to do what they want. Period.]
Vic: Do you think we will have enough information by April 29?
Jason: I think we can get some information by April 29. If you want to move it out a couple of weeks . . . .
Vic: We have a lot going on. Maybe after Spring Cleanup.
Jason: May 1 is the first meeting of the month. Maybe May 8. I might have an obligation that day. Why don't we move on and by the end of the meeting come back to that. I need to check my calendar.
The discussion moved on to rental agreements. You've read this from me before: I've "enjoyed" as much of this as I can stand. More at another date.
8:50: Jason: Township Hall updates. Jason reported that on the previous Thursday the trustees had spent about 45 minutes doing a walk around and reviewing quotes. Except for some window sill areas on the north, south, and perhaps west sides of the building, the wood looks fairly good and has dried out well.
The east side of the building, however, where the fire escape is, is another matter and will need work
Jason asked Vic about the road crew helping with getting some boards off.
Vic: It snowed that day, and they had a class the same day. He agreed that the east was where most of the work had to be done and said that we needed to locate the money to do it.
John Festa reported on something that Barb Herbold had located that was like truck bedliner, but a ceramic. [As it turns out, the product is Rhino Shield, and customer/user comments are far from universally favorable, according to someone who checked.]
Jason allowed as how no matter the option chosen, money was going to have to be spent. [Blogger: Why, with the offer from Steve Coon to do the paint at his expense, is anyone looking for other options--which will cost money, duh!]
Then there was some discussion with Marie about an appropriations status report, which was located on the back table where apparently Jason had left it when he came in.
Spring Cleanup has been advertised in the Community Journal. Tires will be taken, maximum of 10 per person. Portage County Recycling will advertise that program separately.
John Festa asked about the expense: the county supplies the dumpsters, but the rest is on us, as he put it..
Jason commented that Stacy Turner had sent him an e-mail address for public notices in The Weekly Villager.
Next, Jason reported on the proposed meeting regarding the school building with Moody and Nolan. Their position was that they could not comment further without knowing what to present, so Jason sent them what Todd Peetz had done. They want to come to a/the meeting and gather information.
[Let me get a grip on this. Jason asked Todd Peetz to conduct several meetings and a survey and then report on the findings. That came to 4 meetings, counting the Chamber of Commerce meeting that Claudia James handled. Now he takes Todd's work and gives it to Moody and Nolan? This is ethical?]
[Then, back to square one.] Jason: So my question is, how do we start? Do we begin with the focus groups or maybe get together with 2-3 architects and explain what we are going to do with focus groups? We want them to be one step ahead of us. [Who is "them" here? And I think the job of an architect is to follow the lead of the client in meeting the client's needs.] Maybe if they [who is "they"?] came to these meetings, maybe they will come back after the focus groups and we present them with what might be done.
[Jason! Listen up!!!!! The focus groups are free. Urban architects cost money. Architects cost money, no matter where they are. The preliminary study proposed--the second or third one, did you notice--by Moody and Nolan comes to $17,000 plus. And that's without turning a shovel, figuratively speaking, and we keep hearing that the township doesn't have any money. But maybe we won't notice that everything possible has been spent everyplace else to prove that we can't afford the school building? News flash: We've noticed. Lots of us. A long time ago. What do you think prompted the blunt criticism of you in the survey section of Todd's report?]
Jason, continuing: If the focus groups say renovate the first floor, and we say to the architects, provide us with a proposal, here are the specifications---those are just some ideas rattling around in my head because I am not a project planner.
[We noticed a long time ago that Jason is not a project planner. A year ago, Brant Carpentry, Troy Construction, and Hummel Construction all submitted estimates which amounted to proposals about how to renovate the whole first floor. All of them have experience planning projects. They were all ignored. And remember that in 2009 Jason claimed that he would work to get us into the old school. This is about the fourth new beginning on the same ground, which by now should be embarrassingly familiar to Mr. Carlton.]
Vic: I would like to see us follow through with some groups. Hold off on this meeting and follow some of the suggestions from Todd Peetz. It might be best to go to follow through on that, on those meetings.
John Festa: My thoughts are I don't want to drag this out. If these folks are going to come out and talk, we should ask them how to go about it. What will it cost? We already know that the community wants to keep it. How much is it going to cost and what are we going to sacrifice on the other [needs].
We have to stop beating a dead horse. We have this building here that needs money and we are searching for nickles and dimes. Are we going to sacrifice our roads? The people are entitled to know. If the community wants to keep it, fine. Let them know what it will cost.
[For a while there, these comments seemed about to make sense. But here we are again, with the not very subtle implication that the cost of the building will convince the community to ditch it.]
Focus groups are fine, but we have already done that. [Thank you, trustee Festa. Truly.]
What are you going to charge and are we going about it the right way.
Jason: I have been working with two people at Moody Nolan. They were going to come and do a presentation. But they said, "We want to hear from you guys." I can appreciate that. They are not sure where we are at with the project. [At the beginning!!!! And why?] I can only convey so much. I agree that we need to move forward but I am not a project planner.
[OK, setting aside my outrage, I honestly do not know what Jason hopes to get by repeating this phrase so often. Sympathy? He is not a child. And it's not as if he's only five feet tall and distraught because he isn't six feet eight and able to dunk a basket ball. That's kind of understandable if you're a child. But signing up to do a man's job, and saying, repeatedly, that you're not up to it doesn't cut it. Stress reveals character. Or its lack.]
John Festa: We may take the recommendations that Todd Peetz made. I would like to put together a group to put pencil to paper and see what it will cost. Ask people in the township who are in the business like Benner and Hummel. I would ask if they would consider donating a little of their time and come up with some numbers.
Jason: So the good news is that we are in agreement that the committees are a good idea.
Vic: Yes. We should probably set up a special meeting to put things together.
Jason: What committees should there be? What are their roles?[Todd identified them!]
John Festa: Can we just have the meeting and set up a couple of these committees?
Jason: We are going off the recommendations of Regional Planning and show them we are going forward.
Vic: Maybe we can get some information from Todd Peetz on how to do this.
Marie: Since there is an election coming up on May 6, you might put up a notice about the committees.
Jason: So should we still have a meeting on the 29th? I have not advertised for anything yet.
John Festa: [I think.] I don't know, Vic, if we can get committees together yet. We can do some foundation work [And will that take another four years?] Report back every three weeks and have a special meeting every month. [OK, reader, think about that. How long does it sound as if that will take? How much more time to be eaten up until the building is paid off and the two junior trustees can outvote Vic and sell it out from under us. Five households on Old Frost Road don't want paving--but the trustees are going to do what they want. Period.]
Vic: Do you think we will have enough information by April 29?
Jason: I think we can get some information by April 29. If you want to move it out a couple of weeks . . . .
Vic: We have a lot going on. Maybe after Spring Cleanup.
Jason: May 1 is the first meeting of the month. Maybe May 8. I might have an obligation that day. Why don't we move on and by the end of the meeting come back to that. I need to check my calendar.
The discussion moved on to rental agreements. You've read this from me before: I've "enjoyed" as much of this as I can stand. More at another date.
Trustees April 17, 2014: A Fast Pass
Well, I hope and intend that it will be a fast pass.
The usual boiler plate things can be found on the township website after the next meeting, when the minutes will have been reviewed and approved. The ones for April 3 should be there now or soon.
Mark Russell, Ellerhorst Russel Insurance in Garrettsville, and Megan, from the Columbus office, made a presentation about how they might save the township some money. Later, Matt Parsons addressed some of the things that had been mentioned.
[I should mention that for much of this meeting there was constant muttering and conversation from the people whom one would expect to respect Jason enough to act like adults instead of maintaining an undercurrent of noise.]
Club and Committee reports: The garden club has plans to work in the beds on May 17.
The LCA has chosen its officers for this year: Terry Resh, President, Sue Skrovan, Vice President, Amy Janca, Treasurer, and Terri Vechery, Secretary. They will hold their first work day on May 12, a Monday evening, around 4:30.
Mark Hall announced the restoration society's annual meeting, which is open to the public. That information was covered in the immediately preceding post on the blog. Mark said that we hoped to see all three trustees there.
Concerns about the speed and speed limit signs on Skinner: No survey has been done on Skinner. Jason promised to contact ODOT to get a survey done so that the road could be posted officially.
Bob (?) Zulla asked if there is any way we can have input. I do not know whether "we" referred to residents or the trustees, representing us.
The final action on this was a motion by Jason to send a letter to ODOT requesting a survey/study of Skinner. Vic seconded. Unanimous.
Jason presented a list of roads for repair or work for 2014. Old Frost was mentioned first: 1.14 or 1.16 miles, depending on which listing is checked.
Jason: Year after year we spread gravel on it. I think it is time to chip and seal this road. I know there is a lot of work to do to move trees and things. I asked _?_ to come out and look at iut. He did our work last year. He estimated it at 1.2 miles at 18 feet wide. We will widen it while ditching. Chip and seal gravel: Primer coat so that there is something for the aggregate to bond to. Also double chip something like this. He says he has done it in other townships and it has worked.
Cost: $65,404.
Pioneer Trail: SR 44 to Peck. It was on the list last year for chip and seal. 1.19 miles. It was removed from the list last year because we did not have the money. Jason estimated that cost to be about $50,000. Labor has gone up since last year, but not materials.
Winchell from Chamberlain to Townline. It is in desperate need of work. I want the County Engineer to come and look at it. We might be able to get away with a leveling course and then chip and seal. I don't know what we are really going to get into with this. We son't know cost until we get an estimate.
Wayne Road from 44 to Sheldon. 1.08 miles; single chip and seal.
Remington Point: We are committed as a board to working on this (in Old Taylor Woods). 700 feet at a cost of $25,000.
John Edwards Drive--single chip and seal. Doing it right and at the right time will determine how well it lasts. .3 mile.
Total mileage: 4.76; Cost, $189,204
Last year the cost was $185,000 for about the same length of road. A 10% contingency is included. We will probably have to drop one or two of these roads from the list. Jason has been talking with the person who has taken over from Scott Miller about getting a bid book.
Crack sealing: A lot of roads will probably have to be addressed. This is about $2700/mile. Some of the roads are in worse shape than others. The list for crack sealing comes to 13.9 miles, which would come to about $36,000.
Jason asked the other two trustees to look at the list.
Jason: I would really like for you to look at Old Frost. I think we need to look at doing that this year. That is our only gravel road out of 37 centerline miles.
John Festa: How many people live on it?
Jason: Seven houses. The section between Diagonal and Mennonite only has four houses. [And it is paved, for the information of anyone who doesn't use any of those roads.]
John Festa: Wasn't one of our plans on crack sealing to maintain the new roads? Are there any roads where the crack seal might not be best spent? I don't want those roads to go backward because we are not maintaining them. I think it is beneficial to everyone to maintain the roads we have.
Continuing: Old Frost needs work, but we have many other roads that people have been suffering through for many years. I have heard from some people on Old Frost that they don't want the road touched.
Jason: It is the township, not the residents. I can remember before Sheldon was surfaced--the people move too fast on a lot of our roads. The $65,000--every year we are putting loads and loads of gravel on that road. It is a constant maintenance nightmare. I have heard of a couple of residents say they like the gravel road, but in my mind it is not just their road, but a road for the whole township.
[Blogger? OK, applying that logic, why are we not in the school? That's for the whole township, too.]
Marie: We have $218,000 allocated for contracts.
Jason: I tried to stay around that for chip and seal.
Then Jason talked about the tradeoffs with paving and chip and seal and roads that have been worked on. He thought the chip and seal had held up fairly well. He also mentioned that the cracking could be seen in Pioneer Trail and Mantua Center roads. Someone had come out to look at the roads that had been micro finished. Hairline cracks can be seen there because the micro surfacing is very hard, and they will last longer if they are sealed.
Vic: That is why I had Brian Tayerle talk with Seal Masters.
There was a little more about the roads, but nothing world shaking.
John Festa began his report time with comments about getting a press release about the Veterans' Memorial dedication out to the newspapers. He showed it to Vic and Jason. Jason thought it looked fine to him.
John Festa: OK. Vic, I am just going to send it out.
Next, John Festa gave Jason and Vic the reciprocal agreement between Fall and Stebbins and the fire district to deal with the bridge construction on S.R. 44 this summer.
He also announced that a squad would be available for the bicycle time trials .
Finally, in things related to fire and emergency equipment, a new squad is going to be purchased at a cost of $146,900. The trade-in will be $15,000.
Vic: Part of the paving projects planned by ODOT will be in Mantua Township; some of it will begin here and extend into Mahoning County.
Also: Vic received the Round 29 materials. This is for paving in the township. A reply is necessary by June 13 for next year's projects.
Jason: I hate to say it, but for the last couple of years it seems like a farce to try to get grant money.
[Right. So some tries have come up empty. If you don't ask, the answer is always no.]
Vic: For the last few years the money has been taken for bridges. The issue is coming up for renewal on the ballot. We have until June 13 to decide.
We got a check for the V plow, and the purchaser picked it up.
Vic also reported that something had broken on one of the backhoe outriggers. He recommended replacing it with a new part, not trying to repair it because the design prevented proper heating and fusion of the pieces.
[A few years ago, I learned that Vic completed the welding apprenticeship at Lincoln Electric. That program is legendary for the quality of the welders who graduate from it, and my understanding is that Vic has the highest government welding classification. So his recommendation to buy a new part is probably worth something.]
Vic, continuing: The other one needs to be gotten off and examined to be sure it is not cracked underneath also.
Jason thought it made sense to go ahead and do it--get it fixed.
Vic: Why did the phone contract double ? Vic went into some detail about that, which involved some time on his part with the phone company to get the rate down to the original $43.00. He advised Marie to keep an eye on that.
Blogger: This is a good stopping place--just about enough to read in one sitting.
The usual boiler plate things can be found on the township website after the next meeting, when the minutes will have been reviewed and approved. The ones for April 3 should be there now or soon.
Mark Russell, Ellerhorst Russel Insurance in Garrettsville, and Megan, from the Columbus office, made a presentation about how they might save the township some money. Later, Matt Parsons addressed some of the things that had been mentioned.
[I should mention that for much of this meeting there was constant muttering and conversation from the people whom one would expect to respect Jason enough to act like adults instead of maintaining an undercurrent of noise.]
Club and Committee reports: The garden club has plans to work in the beds on May 17.
The LCA has chosen its officers for this year: Terry Resh, President, Sue Skrovan, Vice President, Amy Janca, Treasurer, and Terri Vechery, Secretary. They will hold their first work day on May 12, a Monday evening, around 4:30.
Mark Hall announced the restoration society's annual meeting, which is open to the public. That information was covered in the immediately preceding post on the blog. Mark said that we hoped to see all three trustees there.
Concerns about the speed and speed limit signs on Skinner: No survey has been done on Skinner. Jason promised to contact ODOT to get a survey done so that the road could be posted officially.
Bob (?) Zulla asked if there is any way we can have input. I do not know whether "we" referred to residents or the trustees, representing us.
The final action on this was a motion by Jason to send a letter to ODOT requesting a survey/study of Skinner. Vic seconded. Unanimous.
Jason presented a list of roads for repair or work for 2014. Old Frost was mentioned first: 1.14 or 1.16 miles, depending on which listing is checked.
Jason: Year after year we spread gravel on it. I think it is time to chip and seal this road. I know there is a lot of work to do to move trees and things. I asked _?_ to come out and look at iut. He did our work last year. He estimated it at 1.2 miles at 18 feet wide. We will widen it while ditching. Chip and seal gravel: Primer coat so that there is something for the aggregate to bond to. Also double chip something like this. He says he has done it in other townships and it has worked.
Cost: $65,404.
Pioneer Trail: SR 44 to Peck. It was on the list last year for chip and seal. 1.19 miles. It was removed from the list last year because we did not have the money. Jason estimated that cost to be about $50,000. Labor has gone up since last year, but not materials.
Winchell from Chamberlain to Townline. It is in desperate need of work. I want the County Engineer to come and look at it. We might be able to get away with a leveling course and then chip and seal. I don't know what we are really going to get into with this. We son't know cost until we get an estimate.
Wayne Road from 44 to Sheldon. 1.08 miles; single chip and seal.
Remington Point: We are committed as a board to working on this (in Old Taylor Woods). 700 feet at a cost of $25,000.
John Edwards Drive--single chip and seal. Doing it right and at the right time will determine how well it lasts. .3 mile.
Total mileage: 4.76; Cost, $189,204
Last year the cost was $185,000 for about the same length of road. A 10% contingency is included. We will probably have to drop one or two of these roads from the list. Jason has been talking with the person who has taken over from Scott Miller about getting a bid book.
Crack sealing: A lot of roads will probably have to be addressed. This is about $2700/mile. Some of the roads are in worse shape than others. The list for crack sealing comes to 13.9 miles, which would come to about $36,000.
Jason asked the other two trustees to look at the list.
Jason: I would really like for you to look at Old Frost. I think we need to look at doing that this year. That is our only gravel road out of 37 centerline miles.
John Festa: How many people live on it?
Jason: Seven houses. The section between Diagonal and Mennonite only has four houses. [And it is paved, for the information of anyone who doesn't use any of those roads.]
John Festa: Wasn't one of our plans on crack sealing to maintain the new roads? Are there any roads where the crack seal might not be best spent? I don't want those roads to go backward because we are not maintaining them. I think it is beneficial to everyone to maintain the roads we have.
Continuing: Old Frost needs work, but we have many other roads that people have been suffering through for many years. I have heard from some people on Old Frost that they don't want the road touched.
Jason: It is the township, not the residents. I can remember before Sheldon was surfaced--the people move too fast on a lot of our roads. The $65,000--every year we are putting loads and loads of gravel on that road. It is a constant maintenance nightmare. I have heard of a couple of residents say they like the gravel road, but in my mind it is not just their road, but a road for the whole township.
[Blogger? OK, applying that logic, why are we not in the school? That's for the whole township, too.]
Marie: We have $218,000 allocated for contracts.
Jason: I tried to stay around that for chip and seal.
Then Jason talked about the tradeoffs with paving and chip and seal and roads that have been worked on. He thought the chip and seal had held up fairly well. He also mentioned that the cracking could be seen in Pioneer Trail and Mantua Center roads. Someone had come out to look at the roads that had been micro finished. Hairline cracks can be seen there because the micro surfacing is very hard, and they will last longer if they are sealed.
Vic: That is why I had Brian Tayerle talk with Seal Masters.
There was a little more about the roads, but nothing world shaking.
John Festa began his report time with comments about getting a press release about the Veterans' Memorial dedication out to the newspapers. He showed it to Vic and Jason. Jason thought it looked fine to him.
John Festa: OK. Vic, I am just going to send it out.
Next, John Festa gave Jason and Vic the reciprocal agreement between Fall and Stebbins and the fire district to deal with the bridge construction on S.R. 44 this summer.
He also announced that a squad would be available for the bicycle time trials .
Finally, in things related to fire and emergency equipment, a new squad is going to be purchased at a cost of $146,900. The trade-in will be $15,000.
Vic: Part of the paving projects planned by ODOT will be in Mantua Township; some of it will begin here and extend into Mahoning County.
Also: Vic received the Round 29 materials. This is for paving in the township. A reply is necessary by June 13 for next year's projects.
Jason: I hate to say it, but for the last couple of years it seems like a farce to try to get grant money.
[Right. So some tries have come up empty. If you don't ask, the answer is always no.]
Vic: For the last few years the money has been taken for bridges. The issue is coming up for renewal on the ballot. We have until June 13 to decide.
We got a check for the V plow, and the purchaser picked it up.
Vic also reported that something had broken on one of the backhoe outriggers. He recommended replacing it with a new part, not trying to repair it because the design prevented proper heating and fusion of the pieces.
[A few years ago, I learned that Vic completed the welding apprenticeship at Lincoln Electric. That program is legendary for the quality of the welders who graduate from it, and my understanding is that Vic has the highest government welding classification. So his recommendation to buy a new part is probably worth something.]
Vic, continuing: The other one needs to be gotten off and examined to be sure it is not cracked underneath also.
Jason thought it made sense to go ahead and do it--get it fixed.
Vic: Why did the phone contract double ? Vic went into some detail about that, which involved some time on his part with the phone company to get the rate down to the original $43.00. He advised Marie to keep an eye on that.
Blogger: This is a good stopping place--just about enough to read in one sitting.
What's Right About the School Building
Blogger Foreword: First of all, my apologies to all for such a long lapse and still no posts about the last trustees meeting. And this isn't going to be, either. This week is like a 3-pound bag that has to have 10 pounds stuffed into it. This post is a kind of "two-fer": It is an ad for The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc.,
second annual meeting, and it also reports the content of Mark Hall's announcement in the Club and Committee Reports section of the April 17 meeting.
Mark announced the second annual meeting of The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., on Sunday, April 27, at the Mantua Center school building, 11741 Center Road.
Gather at 1:00 for a [very] light lunch of sandwiches, veggies, and cookies.
The business meeting will be at 1:30, followed by guest speaker Steve Coon at 2:00 p.m.
As of last Thursday, Jonathan Sandvick, Sandvick Architects, Inc., would be attending also. As of today, Thursday, April 25, that has become a little uncertain. However, we believe that a representative of the firm will still be there.
Mark gave a brief bio of Mr. Sandvick, which had too much detail delivered faster than I could keep up. However, here is a brief list of Mr. Sandvick's credentials, derived from information posted on the Internet at www.sandvickarchitects.com/page7Html. That is not a "live" link in the blog, but if you Google it or Jonathan Sandvick, you should get it. The key to whether you have the same source that Mark and I worked from is the page 7 as part of the address.
Here is a partial list of Jonathan Sandvick's qualifications and his work in historic preservation.
He earned a B.A. and M.A. in architecture from Kent State University.
He is or is part of
Vice Chair of Heritage Ohio, which handles physical restoration (as opposed to archives) in Ohio
Vice Chair of Downtown Cleveland Alliance
Executive Committee of the Cleveland Historic Warehouse District Development Corporation
Trustee of The Cleveland Restoration Society
"Sandvick Architects, Inc., . . . practices sustainable design by applying the principles of historic preservation. . . ."
"Jonathan is an expert in the architectural analysis of historic buildings . . . ."
He "believes that our existing buildings are one of our great storehouses of natural resources imbued with wonderful artistry and history . . . ."
Also attending will be John Zeit, architect, from Kent, who was in the small group which went through the school building when Vic took Steve Coon through it, with a videographer, about a month ago. John has retired from teaching at Stark State College in Canton, where he taught Civil Engineering Technology.
The capstone of the program for those students was the Estimating class, in which students were given blueprints of an existing building with the assignment to renovate it for use as offices for a consulting firm. They presented their plans and estimated costs at the end of the term in as if they were members of a design-build firm competing for the bid. Drawings, cost estimates, and a construction schedule were all part of the presentation
Steve Coon will have a power point presentation about what in historic presentation is called a sense of place. How our building is part of that should become clear to everyone who attends. Plans are in place to video record that presentation. The video of the walkthrough of our building will also be available.
Let me make this as clear as possible: There is far more right than wrong with this 100-year-old building, or it would not have gotten the support that it has from qualified people who do not have a local axe to grind for purely personal, hostile reasons.
Their opinions are worth a great deal because they are based on a wide knowledge of buildings, structures, the economic value of renovation, and conservation of the resources available to a community.
If you have been reading the blog for a while, you don't need me to tell you how different that is from what is often said by the opposition during trustees meetings.
Please come to the Mantua Center school building at 1 p.m. on this Sunday afternoon, April 27. It really is a once in a lifetime opportunity, well worth juggling your schedules for.
second annual meeting, and it also reports the content of Mark Hall's announcement in the Club and Committee Reports section of the April 17 meeting.
Mark announced the second annual meeting of The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., on Sunday, April 27, at the Mantua Center school building, 11741 Center Road.
Gather at 1:00 for a [very] light lunch of sandwiches, veggies, and cookies.
The business meeting will be at 1:30, followed by guest speaker Steve Coon at 2:00 p.m.
As of last Thursday, Jonathan Sandvick, Sandvick Architects, Inc., would be attending also. As of today, Thursday, April 25, that has become a little uncertain. However, we believe that a representative of the firm will still be there.
Mark gave a brief bio of Mr. Sandvick, which had too much detail delivered faster than I could keep up. However, here is a brief list of Mr. Sandvick's credentials, derived from information posted on the Internet at www.sandvickarchitects.com/page7Html. That is not a "live" link in the blog, but if you Google it or Jonathan Sandvick, you should get it. The key to whether you have the same source that Mark and I worked from is the page 7 as part of the address.
Here is a partial list of Jonathan Sandvick's qualifications and his work in historic preservation.
He earned a B.A. and M.A. in architecture from Kent State University.
He is or is part of
Vice Chair of Heritage Ohio, which handles physical restoration (as opposed to archives) in Ohio
Vice Chair of Downtown Cleveland Alliance
Executive Committee of the Cleveland Historic Warehouse District Development Corporation
Trustee of The Cleveland Restoration Society
"Sandvick Architects, Inc., . . . practices sustainable design by applying the principles of historic preservation. . . ."
"Jonathan is an expert in the architectural analysis of historic buildings . . . ."
He "believes that our existing buildings are one of our great storehouses of natural resources imbued with wonderful artistry and history . . . ."
Also attending will be John Zeit, architect, from Kent, who was in the small group which went through the school building when Vic took Steve Coon through it, with a videographer, about a month ago. John has retired from teaching at Stark State College in Canton, where he taught Civil Engineering Technology.
The capstone of the program for those students was the Estimating class, in which students were given blueprints of an existing building with the assignment to renovate it for use as offices for a consulting firm. They presented their plans and estimated costs at the end of the term in as if they were members of a design-build firm competing for the bid. Drawings, cost estimates, and a construction schedule were all part of the presentation
Steve Coon will have a power point presentation about what in historic presentation is called a sense of place. How our building is part of that should become clear to everyone who attends. Plans are in place to video record that presentation. The video of the walkthrough of our building will also be available.
Let me make this as clear as possible: There is far more right than wrong with this 100-year-old building, or it would not have gotten the support that it has from qualified people who do not have a local axe to grind for purely personal, hostile reasons.
Their opinions are worth a great deal because they are based on a wide knowledge of buildings, structures, the economic value of renovation, and conservation of the resources available to a community.
If you have been reading the blog for a while, you don't need me to tell you how different that is from what is often said by the opposition during trustees meetings.
Please come to the Mantua Center school building at 1 p.m. on this Sunday afternoon, April 27. It really is a once in a lifetime opportunity, well worth juggling your schedules for.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Trustees Box Score 4-3-14
Jason: Made a motion to approve 5 safety yellow sweatshirts apiece for the road crew
Asked about advertising and a sign announcing/publicizing Memorial Day
Made motions to dispose of and then to sell the V-plow from the road grader
Will place ads for equipment bids
Announced that at the next meeting the trustees would decide what to do about the Bogden rental
Reviewed the township's website; made one suggestion for change
John Festa: Wanted more enforcement of zoning, especially regarding appearances (junk cars, e.g.)
Motion for a resolution regarding outdoor equipment storage of a large piece of equipment on Timber Point
The township needs (after 2 years) to do something about Mrs. Maynard's driveway
Will go to an insurance workshop in Strongsville
Initiated much discussion about phones and Internet at the school building
Motion to have Time Warner Cable provide service for 3 phones and high-speed internet at the school building
Wants to record meetings so the township can own the information
Asserted that he would have a draft of a newsletter at the next meeting and that the trustees would review and decide on it then
Vic: Warned about the risk of lawsuits regarding zoning enforcement that could be ruled a taking
Suggested working with Shalersville on crack sealing
Presented prices for work on the foul line fences at the ball field, as desired by Pony Tail League
Motion to pay 1/3 of the cost of adding to the fences
Has arranged for all dumpsters for cleanup on May 3
Announced that the salt bid has been sent.
Gave equipment bid specifications to the other two t rustees
Requested a walk-around of the Township Hall in order to see what pre-painting repairs have to be made
Blogger's note: The following was added after everything above had been posted. I forgot to include it as part of the meeting, which it is.
After executive session: Reported on research and made a motion to set aside a blanket purchase order for $2300 for items and materials needed to handle and dispose of hazardous materials in the garage.
'
Asked about advertising and a sign announcing/publicizing Memorial Day
Made motions to dispose of and then to sell the V-plow from the road grader
Will place ads for equipment bids
Announced that at the next meeting the trustees would decide what to do about the Bogden rental
Reviewed the township's website; made one suggestion for change
John Festa: Wanted more enforcement of zoning, especially regarding appearances (junk cars, e.g.)
Motion for a resolution regarding outdoor equipment storage of a large piece of equipment on Timber Point
The township needs (after 2 years) to do something about Mrs. Maynard's driveway
Will go to an insurance workshop in Strongsville
Initiated much discussion about phones and Internet at the school building
Motion to have Time Warner Cable provide service for 3 phones and high-speed internet at the school building
Wants to record meetings so the township can own the information
Asserted that he would have a draft of a newsletter at the next meeting and that the trustees would review and decide on it then
Vic: Warned about the risk of lawsuits regarding zoning enforcement that could be ruled a taking
Suggested working with Shalersville on crack sealing
Presented prices for work on the foul line fences at the ball field, as desired by Pony Tail League
Motion to pay 1/3 of the cost of adding to the fences
Has arranged for all dumpsters for cleanup on May 3
Announced that the salt bid has been sent.
Gave equipment bid specifications to the other two t rustees
Requested a walk-around of the Township Hall in order to see what pre-painting repairs have to be made
Blogger's note: The following was added after everything above had been posted. I forgot to include it as part of the meeting, which it is.
After executive session: Reported on research and made a motion to set aside a blanket purchase order for $2300 for items and materials needed to handle and dispose of hazardous materials in the garage.
'
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Trustees April 3 after Executive Session; Safety & Hazardous Materials
After the bills had been paid, Vic made a motion to go into executive session to discuss security. At that point, the rest of us left the hall, and your faithful blogger went home. The rest of this post comes from the recording.
Upon reconvening, there was no comment about security. I am assuming that the part of the executive session that dealt with that issue did not result in a decision to act. Without such a decision, nothing should be said about what goes on in executive sessions.
There was also discussion about improving safety in the garage. There was a lot of extraneous noise on the recording as people shuffled chairs, feet, and papers.
Topics were safety cans for, I believe, proper disposal of used oil and cleaning chemicals. They require a certain kind of safety cap. Vic--who was the lead person, or maybe the only one, collecting this information--reported that the cheapest ones that met the requirements are at Tractor Supply. Total is about $130.00 for one 2-1/2-gallon and two 5-gallon cans.
Then there was discussion about pipe required, with some of it being stainless steel at $235.00 (stainless to withstand the salt) and the rest totaling $245.00.
Perforated sheet and angle iron are also required for this project, galvanized rather than painted. The steel would be by weight (about 1800 pounds, with a recommended "fudge factor" that would bring the total to about 1935 pounds.
The galvanized steel would come to $669.00 and would be delivered within 5-7 days. This would be a savings over another alternative. The galvanizing would be 4 layers. Total for the plate, galvanizing, and locks would be $2275.00.
[Blogger's note: The best way to get accurate figures and materials on this will be from the official minutes. Draft minutes are available on the sign-in table at meetings, and are usually accurate enough for most of us.]
The drain from the shop sink runs through the wall and out into the gravel on the outside. The used oil was an issue. It is not the way they are storing it, but because we are a government facility it must be removed by someone with a registration number. He looked at out parts washer the same way. He looked at the grates. We may need to install an oil/water separator. I don't know what we will have to do with the sink.
[All of the above is Vic's report on his findings.]
Jason asked why about the oil/water separator.
Vic: The way things are arranged now, there is no way to control a spill. The [consultant] wrote the letter to Brian Tayerle. It will be in the next two weeks. [Blogger: I don't quite know what "it" refers to. Installation of the required modifications? That's a guess.]
Vic, continuing: The tank will be marked as used oil and must be hauled away by someone licensed.
There were a couple of things about the parts washer and something that needs to be looked into.
Vic: He was decent about the whole thing and looked at our other oil drums. We have been using xylene. It is very hazardous. He told us to get rid of any of it we have.
Vic talked about a one-gallon spill of xylene and the size of the hole to remove the contaminated dirt, at a total cost of $30,000. [Blogger's emphasis.]
Vic made a motion to set aside a blanket purchase order for $2300. He said he would get on the line and get that handled.
Jason made some comments about disposing of the xylene we have. It would come under Improvement of Sites.
The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.
Vic said something about including the third bay, and the meeting adjourned.
The part of the meeting in this post was about 14 minutes long. I do not know how long the executive session was.
Upon reconvening, there was no comment about security. I am assuming that the part of the executive session that dealt with that issue did not result in a decision to act. Without such a decision, nothing should be said about what goes on in executive sessions.
There was also discussion about improving safety in the garage. There was a lot of extraneous noise on the recording as people shuffled chairs, feet, and papers.
Topics were safety cans for, I believe, proper disposal of used oil and cleaning chemicals. They require a certain kind of safety cap. Vic--who was the lead person, or maybe the only one, collecting this information--reported that the cheapest ones that met the requirements are at Tractor Supply. Total is about $130.00 for one 2-1/2-gallon and two 5-gallon cans.
Then there was discussion about pipe required, with some of it being stainless steel at $235.00 (stainless to withstand the salt) and the rest totaling $245.00.
Perforated sheet and angle iron are also required for this project, galvanized rather than painted. The steel would be by weight (about 1800 pounds, with a recommended "fudge factor" that would bring the total to about 1935 pounds.
The galvanized steel would come to $669.00 and would be delivered within 5-7 days. This would be a savings over another alternative. The galvanizing would be 4 layers. Total for the plate, galvanizing, and locks would be $2275.00.
[Blogger's note: The best way to get accurate figures and materials on this will be from the official minutes. Draft minutes are available on the sign-in table at meetings, and are usually accurate enough for most of us.]
The drain from the shop sink runs through the wall and out into the gravel on the outside. The used oil was an issue. It is not the way they are storing it, but because we are a government facility it must be removed by someone with a registration number. He looked at out parts washer the same way. He looked at the grates. We may need to install an oil/water separator. I don't know what we will have to do with the sink.
[All of the above is Vic's report on his findings.]
Jason asked why about the oil/water separator.
Vic: The way things are arranged now, there is no way to control a spill. The [consultant] wrote the letter to Brian Tayerle. It will be in the next two weeks. [Blogger: I don't quite know what "it" refers to. Installation of the required modifications? That's a guess.]
Vic, continuing: The tank will be marked as used oil and must be hauled away by someone licensed.
There were a couple of things about the parts washer and something that needs to be looked into.
Vic: He was decent about the whole thing and looked at our other oil drums. We have been using xylene. It is very hazardous. He told us to get rid of any of it we have.
Vic talked about a one-gallon spill of xylene and the size of the hole to remove the contaminated dirt, at a total cost of $30,000. [Blogger's emphasis.]
Vic made a motion to set aside a blanket purchase order for $2300. He said he would get on the line and get that handled.
Jason made some comments about disposing of the xylene we have. It would come under Improvement of Sites.
The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.
Vic said something about including the third bay, and the meeting adjourned.
The part of the meeting in this post was about 14 minutes long. I do not know how long the executive session was.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Public Comment April 3: Probing questions; Insolence
Public Comment began at 9:25.
[Blogger Foreword: This post is now complete, and as of 4/17, it has also been proofread . There are probably still some glitches, but nothing that prevents comprehension.]
Jason requested that comments be kept brief, since it was growing late and an executive session was planned as well.
Bob Zulla, Skinner Road: About a half dozen meetings ago I asked about getting a speed limit sign replaced on my street and was told that the trustees need to check about a survey allowing it to be posted. Have the trustees found it or looked?
Vic: I did. I did not find anything on that about a survey letting it be posted. I don't see any time that there was an actual state survey.
Bob: The signs were there when we moved. They went up after that and there is still one down on the east end of the street.
Vic: We can ask for a survey and they will post it based on the surface of the road and it will probably be 45mph.
[There was talking from the back of the room, in the vicinity of the corner where Larry Leitzow usually sits. At least this time whoever it was was not audibly cursing about things not moving as quickly as they "should." That happens sometimes.]
Jason: It is not an uncomplicated process.
Jason had talked to someone who said that the last available [information] available was old. Jason will have to follow up with the district ODOT.
Shalersville went through this process and it took 5-6 months just to go through the process anything will be changed. I can not find anything about a survey either.
Bob: Did someone just put them up?
Vic: Probably, yes. We had that happen on Hillcrest. Someone just purchased the signs and put them up.
Jason: If that is the case and someone gets cited, those speed limits are non enforceable.
Bob: I would appreciate if you guys would go forward on that. When I pull out of my drive and look, there is no one, but by the time I get to Maynard's drive, there is someone on my butt.
[Bob also said that he walks on the street for exercise and felt that you took your life in your hands to do that, in light of the speed that people drive on Skinner.]
Vic: They may post it higher than you expect it to be.
Bob: Anything has to be better than what they are doing.
[John Festa added something about in all fairness, they should look into it, since Bob had brought this up some time ago.]
Sue Skrovan, Wayne Road: My comments are from the last meeting regarding the idea of a newsletter. I don't know if the other trustees had a chance to look. Jackson Township and Concord Township--we are not comparing apples to apples. Jackson Township [in Stark County] has over 40,000 people. Concord has almost 16,000--three times our size. They have departments and administrators. Jackson Township has 120 employees. They put out a newsletter, but they have a lot of services they provide. I would like to see what Portage County does: does anyone here do that? I prefer to see what you guys are doing on the website. Both of them have their newsletters on their websites.
John Festa: Yes, they are big cities. We are a small township, so it is all relevant. As far as the newsletter is concerned, I did not bring it today because I am completing a draft. I did not complete it this week. I am going to present it to the trustees and we will move forward on that.
Sue: My comment on that is that it is not relevant.
John Festa: It is because you asked me if [other] townships have newsletters that advertise.
Sue: We should be looking at something that is apples to apples. We do not have police and fire or water and sewer. It is not relevant. It is not the same in case the trustees want to review them. It is on their websites.
[Blogger: This is an interesting exchange and demonstration of talking at cross purposes. Sue's argument is that what the other two townships do is irrelevant to our situation because we are so different from them. John Festa's position is that it is relevant because Sue asked about it.]
Mark Hall had no comment, and Matt Parsons left at a little after 9.
Carole Pollard [ I forgot to give my address--Allyn Road.] What is the status of Moody and Nolan?
Jason: It is here under my Old Business I do plan on talking about that this evening.
CP: I also requested employee evaluation reports and was told that there are none. I would like to know how you can possibly support raises, promotions, and terminations without documentation.
Jason: We can hire and fire at will. We do not have to have a reason, per the ORC.
CP: So you are doing things by whim and without documentation.
Jason: That is your opinion.
CP: That is observation.
Jason: We have unanimously approved to give raises and promotions.
CP: I am saying you did it without documentation. Do you have employee evaluations where you work?
Jason: That is a personal question and I am not going to answer. Is that all?
CP: One more thing. I think that the people in this township are intelligent and committed enough to what is going on in their lives so that they can be trusted to form the committees recommended by Todd Peetz and can give you good, solid advice about what they want for the school. I think that going to a city and getting someone who does not know anything about townships is not going to help and the suggestion that we expand the school and bring in industry strikes me as completely not suited to who we are and what we can afford.
The logical progression is to go forward with what Todd Peetz recommended and not go back a year. [The letter from Moody and Nolan to Jason outlining their $17,000 preliminary study was dated mid-August 2013.]
I think it is a matter of trust--that you don't trust the people of this township and that you really don't want volunteers.
Steve Zielinski [also did not give his address]: Steve asked about the cost of the payments on the school. Marie answered. The annual payments have been split into two equal ones that total about $30,000.
Steve: The new truck would cost $150,000. After the school is paid off, you could pay for a new truck in 5 years. That would be a good example of how you could spend the $150,000. You will have $30,000 a year freed up in November. In five years you can pay off a truck.
Vic: We have always had a fund that we saved up so we always had the money. They have cut us so much on local government that everybody is tight. That is why we have set that fund up, so we can have the money.
[Blogger: The above is not verbatim, and there was an actual exchange between Steve and Vic. However, the content, above, is accurate. Marie gave the payments to the penny, I believe, which is probably not crucial to the thrust of the conversation.]
Dave Pollard, 3692 S.R. 82. First of all, I know you are going to go ahead with the proposed dedication on Memorial Day. You are going to do it, but you will demonstrate that you know little about what that date is and means. You owe it to the people around here to do a little homework. There is another date for it.
As far as the money saved on the school, you are also saving a salary since the end of March. Since the cupola over there has been a focal point for the supposed dilapidation of the entire building, which is a false premise, you would have the money in a short time to pay for the repair and renovation of that cupola. That would be a very visible thing that would show you are serious about moving forward.
I am not sure now, even with what you said at the last meeting, Jason, whether you are serious about going forward with the building. But that would be a chance to show you are serious.
You can use the money on the road crew to renovate the bell tower. The $30,000 a year will go a long way to getting the whole building first floor done and the building done to rent and generate some income..
The truck is another whole thing.
Marie pointed out that gas tax money, which pays at least part of the salaries for the road crew, cannot be used on a public building--but it can be used for a truck.
Dale Zulla: I think the newsletter would be a very good idea. A lot of people have the internet and a lot of people want to see it in print. With the school paid off you have some money for that. If you have people to sponsor it, have them sponsor it.
Larry Leitzow, S.R. 82: About the cemetery signs. I was given the credit for doing it but I was not the only one. Dan Palmenter and Steve Zielinski worked on it whenever they could. As far as the road crew, when they brought them down, I cut them apart, and they took them to have them sandblasted. [Larry described that in a little detail about the back and forth of it.] The two boys and Jim Aldrich worked together to get the signs up. It worked very well.
Speaking of sandblasting, a local blogger, Fact Checker, stated in her one blog that the sandblasting had been done by the blacksmith on Taylor May Road. It was absolutely not. It was done by Matt Lauer at Lakeside Sand and Gravel.
[Blogger: Two things: First, the above inaccuracy was corrected in a previous post. Second, for someone who has spoken so dismissively about computers and his not having or needing one, Larry has shown an impressive attention to detail here.]
Dawn Pechman: You don't have a date for Moody and Nolan yet? I would like to know when the date is going to be.
Jason: We are going to talk about it after public comment.
Dawn: Can you call me and let me know when that date is going to be?
Jason: I will e-mail you.
Dawn: The next item on her list was about a set of minutes, with which she had an issue and wanted to have: Are you going to send me that?
Next: How many phone lines come in here--2 or 1?
Vic: One.
Dawn: Just one? [Vic tried to answer.]
Dawn: I was talking to John Festa.
Vic: I would rather keep the one line in here.
Dawn: Well, that's wonderful, Vic. [Somewhere in here Jason made a weak comment to Dawn about being respectful--as effective as trying to stop a semi rolling downhill without brakes. That is not a criticism of Jason; I doubt that using a bull horn would have made any difference.]
Vic: What if that [Blogger: I don't know what "that" refers to.] gets moved out of here?
Dawn: I don't care. I was talking to John Festa. You can have whatever you want, Vic.
[OK, Ms Pechman, by all means avoid asking the person who knows all of the township buildings like the back of his hand, and trump up a way of insulting him to boot. So much for former pleas to be respectful, which we used to be able to count on from Dawn right along with lectures at every meeting about public records.]
Dawn also asked something about hard wiring the building for some kind of electronic service, I believe, and included her now-usual remarks about being in the 21st century.
Dawn left after that.
The next order of business was to agree on a date and time to meet with Moody Nolan. There was a little discussion about that, and Jason said that he thought the focus groups were good but that Moody Nolan would be useful also.
We will have further discussion on the school and are going to move forward.
[Blogger: I'll believe it when it happens. This is the first third of Jason's fifth year in office. The promises have worn as thin as Gladwrap. Focus groups are a high-sounding way of stalling yet again.]
Vic returned to the phone line issue: We are paying $30.00 a month for a security line. How often are you going to use it [a second line, I believe]--three times a month? That is why we have only one line.
John Festa: I appreciate that and this is a question for another day. [I think he also said that the question came out of nowhere.]
Vic and John talked over each other a little, but not necessarily against each other, and Vic said, it does not make sense to have additional lines coming in here.
Then there was a motion to pay the bills.
I will have to listen to the recording for what was said and decided after the executive session and will make it a separate post, regardless of its brevity or length..
[Blogger Foreword: This post is now complete, and as of 4/17, it has also been proofread . There are probably still some glitches, but nothing that prevents comprehension.]
Jason requested that comments be kept brief, since it was growing late and an executive session was planned as well.
Bob Zulla, Skinner Road: About a half dozen meetings ago I asked about getting a speed limit sign replaced on my street and was told that the trustees need to check about a survey allowing it to be posted. Have the trustees found it or looked?
Vic: I did. I did not find anything on that about a survey letting it be posted. I don't see any time that there was an actual state survey.
Bob: The signs were there when we moved. They went up after that and there is still one down on the east end of the street.
Vic: We can ask for a survey and they will post it based on the surface of the road and it will probably be 45mph.
[There was talking from the back of the room, in the vicinity of the corner where Larry Leitzow usually sits. At least this time whoever it was was not audibly cursing about things not moving as quickly as they "should." That happens sometimes.]
Jason: It is not an uncomplicated process.
Jason had talked to someone who said that the last available [information] available was old. Jason will have to follow up with the district ODOT.
Shalersville went through this process and it took 5-6 months just to go through the process anything will be changed. I can not find anything about a survey either.
Bob: Did someone just put them up?
Vic: Probably, yes. We had that happen on Hillcrest. Someone just purchased the signs and put them up.
Jason: If that is the case and someone gets cited, those speed limits are non enforceable.
Bob: I would appreciate if you guys would go forward on that. When I pull out of my drive and look, there is no one, but by the time I get to Maynard's drive, there is someone on my butt.
[Bob also said that he walks on the street for exercise and felt that you took your life in your hands to do that, in light of the speed that people drive on Skinner.]
Vic: They may post it higher than you expect it to be.
Bob: Anything has to be better than what they are doing.
[John Festa added something about in all fairness, they should look into it, since Bob had brought this up some time ago.]
Sue Skrovan, Wayne Road: My comments are from the last meeting regarding the idea of a newsletter. I don't know if the other trustees had a chance to look. Jackson Township and Concord Township--we are not comparing apples to apples. Jackson Township [in Stark County] has over 40,000 people. Concord has almost 16,000--three times our size. They have departments and administrators. Jackson Township has 120 employees. They put out a newsletter, but they have a lot of services they provide. I would like to see what Portage County does: does anyone here do that? I prefer to see what you guys are doing on the website. Both of them have their newsletters on their websites.
John Festa: Yes, they are big cities. We are a small township, so it is all relevant. As far as the newsletter is concerned, I did not bring it today because I am completing a draft. I did not complete it this week. I am going to present it to the trustees and we will move forward on that.
Sue: My comment on that is that it is not relevant.
John Festa: It is because you asked me if [other] townships have newsletters that advertise.
Sue: We should be looking at something that is apples to apples. We do not have police and fire or water and sewer. It is not relevant. It is not the same in case the trustees want to review them. It is on their websites.
[Blogger: This is an interesting exchange and demonstration of talking at cross purposes. Sue's argument is that what the other two townships do is irrelevant to our situation because we are so different from them. John Festa's position is that it is relevant because Sue asked about it.]
Mark Hall had no comment, and Matt Parsons left at a little after 9.
Carole Pollard [ I forgot to give my address--Allyn Road.] What is the status of Moody and Nolan?
Jason: It is here under my Old Business I do plan on talking about that this evening.
CP: I also requested employee evaluation reports and was told that there are none. I would like to know how you can possibly support raises, promotions, and terminations without documentation.
Jason: We can hire and fire at will. We do not have to have a reason, per the ORC.
CP: So you are doing things by whim and without documentation.
Jason: That is your opinion.
CP: That is observation.
Jason: We have unanimously approved to give raises and promotions.
CP: I am saying you did it without documentation. Do you have employee evaluations where you work?
Jason: That is a personal question and I am not going to answer. Is that all?
CP: One more thing. I think that the people in this township are intelligent and committed enough to what is going on in their lives so that they can be trusted to form the committees recommended by Todd Peetz and can give you good, solid advice about what they want for the school. I think that going to a city and getting someone who does not know anything about townships is not going to help and the suggestion that we expand the school and bring in industry strikes me as completely not suited to who we are and what we can afford.
The logical progression is to go forward with what Todd Peetz recommended and not go back a year. [The letter from Moody and Nolan to Jason outlining their $17,000 preliminary study was dated mid-August 2013.]
I think it is a matter of trust--that you don't trust the people of this township and that you really don't want volunteers.
Steve Zielinski [also did not give his address]: Steve asked about the cost of the payments on the school. Marie answered. The annual payments have been split into two equal ones that total about $30,000.
Steve: The new truck would cost $150,000. After the school is paid off, you could pay for a new truck in 5 years. That would be a good example of how you could spend the $150,000. You will have $30,000 a year freed up in November. In five years you can pay off a truck.
Vic: We have always had a fund that we saved up so we always had the money. They have cut us so much on local government that everybody is tight. That is why we have set that fund up, so we can have the money.
[Blogger: The above is not verbatim, and there was an actual exchange between Steve and Vic. However, the content, above, is accurate. Marie gave the payments to the penny, I believe, which is probably not crucial to the thrust of the conversation.]
Dave Pollard, 3692 S.R. 82. First of all, I know you are going to go ahead with the proposed dedication on Memorial Day. You are going to do it, but you will demonstrate that you know little about what that date is and means. You owe it to the people around here to do a little homework. There is another date for it.
As far as the money saved on the school, you are also saving a salary since the end of March. Since the cupola over there has been a focal point for the supposed dilapidation of the entire building, which is a false premise, you would have the money in a short time to pay for the repair and renovation of that cupola. That would be a very visible thing that would show you are serious about moving forward.
I am not sure now, even with what you said at the last meeting, Jason, whether you are serious about going forward with the building. But that would be a chance to show you are serious.
You can use the money on the road crew to renovate the bell tower. The $30,000 a year will go a long way to getting the whole building first floor done and the building done to rent and generate some income..
The truck is another whole thing.
Marie pointed out that gas tax money, which pays at least part of the salaries for the road crew, cannot be used on a public building--but it can be used for a truck.
Dale Zulla: I think the newsletter would be a very good idea. A lot of people have the internet and a lot of people want to see it in print. With the school paid off you have some money for that. If you have people to sponsor it, have them sponsor it.
Larry Leitzow, S.R. 82: About the cemetery signs. I was given the credit for doing it but I was not the only one. Dan Palmenter and Steve Zielinski worked on it whenever they could. As far as the road crew, when they brought them down, I cut them apart, and they took them to have them sandblasted. [Larry described that in a little detail about the back and forth of it.] The two boys and Jim Aldrich worked together to get the signs up. It worked very well.
Speaking of sandblasting, a local blogger, Fact Checker, stated in her one blog that the sandblasting had been done by the blacksmith on Taylor May Road. It was absolutely not. It was done by Matt Lauer at Lakeside Sand and Gravel.
[Blogger: Two things: First, the above inaccuracy was corrected in a previous post. Second, for someone who has spoken so dismissively about computers and his not having or needing one, Larry has shown an impressive attention to detail here.]
Dawn Pechman: You don't have a date for Moody and Nolan yet? I would like to know when the date is going to be.
Jason: We are going to talk about it after public comment.
Dawn: Can you call me and let me know when that date is going to be?
Jason: I will e-mail you.
Dawn: The next item on her list was about a set of minutes, with which she had an issue and wanted to have: Are you going to send me that?
Next: How many phone lines come in here--2 or 1?
Vic: One.
Dawn: Just one? [Vic tried to answer.]
Dawn: I was talking to John Festa.
Vic: I would rather keep the one line in here.
Dawn: Well, that's wonderful, Vic. [Somewhere in here Jason made a weak comment to Dawn about being respectful--as effective as trying to stop a semi rolling downhill without brakes. That is not a criticism of Jason; I doubt that using a bull horn would have made any difference.]
Vic: What if that [Blogger: I don't know what "that" refers to.] gets moved out of here?
Dawn: I don't care. I was talking to John Festa. You can have whatever you want, Vic.
[OK, Ms Pechman, by all means avoid asking the person who knows all of the township buildings like the back of his hand, and trump up a way of insulting him to boot. So much for former pleas to be respectful, which we used to be able to count on from Dawn right along with lectures at every meeting about public records.]
Dawn also asked something about hard wiring the building for some kind of electronic service, I believe, and included her now-usual remarks about being in the 21st century.
Dawn left after that.
The next order of business was to agree on a date and time to meet with Moody Nolan. There was a little discussion about that, and Jason said that he thought the focus groups were good but that Moody Nolan would be useful also.
We will have further discussion on the school and are going to move forward.
[Blogger: I'll believe it when it happens. This is the first third of Jason's fifth year in office. The promises have worn as thin as Gladwrap. Focus groups are a high-sounding way of stalling yet again.]
Vic returned to the phone line issue: We are paying $30.00 a month for a security line. How often are you going to use it [a second line, I believe]--three times a month? That is why we have only one line.
John Festa: I appreciate that and this is a question for another day. [I think he also said that the question came out of nowhere.]
Vic and John talked over each other a little, but not necessarily against each other, and Vic said, it does not make sense to have additional lines coming in here.
Then there was a motion to pay the bills.
I will have to listen to the recording for what was said and decided after the executive session and will make it a separate post, regardless of its brevity or length..
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Trustees April 3: Township Hall, Phones & Internet
Foreword, with nothing to do with the meeting: Spring is here. The coltsfoot is blooming, and if you were wondering, the blooms look like kind of sickly dandelions. The plant will thrive in really lousy soil, like roadsides and ditches, and in wet or dry and sunny or shady locations. The roots form a dense mat under the surface of the soil and prevent erosion. So--aren't you glad you didn't ask? Anyhow, they are the first wildflowers to bloom in the spring.
Old Business: Township Hall Updates:
Vic: No updates, but I would like to get this fire escape off and for the trustees to set a meeting so we can go through the estimates and get a handle on what we need. We should do a walk-around and go through the quotes.
John Festa: I would like to take a look at it. I think we should take a look before we . . . .
Vic: When do you want to do that?
Jason: Next Thursday at 6 p.m.
At this point, Dawn Pechman, who had been standing in the kitchenette with the lights off, came up closer to the front of the room and interrupted by asking if this was a special meeting. I think she also said something about not being able to hear what was being said.
Vic: We are talking about this building.
Dawn: Questioned that. Then: So you can paint it?
John Festa: We have not made a decision about which way we are going. [!!!]
Marie asked Jason to advertise the meeting; he would do that.
Jason or Marie said that there was also another meeting [zoning commission] at the Township Hall at 7:30 that same evening.
Then there was discussion about the Bogden rental and mess left at the annex around Halloween last year.
It is still in the hands of the insurance company; nothing has come back.
Jason: So at the next meeting we either decide about small claims court or dropping it.
John Festa: Internet at the school.
I have some new proposals. Time Warner Cable can/will provide Internet and Wi-Fi for $50/month if we bundle the telephones with them. As far as the telephones are concerned, this is not cable based but will come over the telephone lines. All [companies] use the same lines. Time Warner Cable has offered us the same numbers and three lines--the fiscal officer, sexton, and fax--with unlimited local and long distance, caller ID, and voice mail. $139.97/month, plus tax and fees. There is a one-time installation charge of $254.
We are also getting 7 megs of Internet service, which is very good.
[Blogger: From here, it sounded as if everyone was discussing things they know well, but the pieces did not make a whole lot of sense to me. What follows is from my notes.]
Marie: $54.60/month for Internet, including all; that is sort of bundled with the Zoning Inspector's phone.
[Then there were the following numbers: $54.60; $9.30; $160.00. Total: $250.12.
Vic: Another line goes in there at a special rate--that is for the furnace and should stay.
John Festa: What exactly do we pay every month for phone service? [Blogger: The trustees sign the bills every month, and this phone/Internet project has belonged to John Festa all along. He has to ask this?]
Answer, probably from Marie: $360.99 for Township Hall, school, security, garage, cemetery phone and fax for me, and phone and fax there. [Blogger: Not sure where "there" is.]
$460/month.
Jason: That line still has to have a phone number.
Marie: The two heating control phones are $30.37/month [each, I believe--blogger.]
Vic: There have been some complaints about bundling.
John Festa took issue with that.
Vic: Al of the rooms are wired for cable.
John Festa: Made a motion to have Time Warner Cable provide service for 3 phones and high-speed Internet for 139.97/month plus tax and fees. In addition, a cost of $254 for a one-time installation charge for Internet and phone.
Jason: Seconded. Vic clarified the numbers: 274-8443, 8447,. and 8882. [Blogger: My notes have a question mark over the last number. It should be posted on the Township's official website once the service has been installed, if not already there.]
Motion passed unanimously.
Other Old Business: Jason said that the website had been talked about at the last meeting and asked for updates or changes.
He had one: Financial information. Marie can get that information and the yearly budgetary information.
To Vic: Jason asked about a photograph, which Vic said he will get.
[Note: No photographs of the zoning commission members are posted, the result of a unanimous decision by the commission.]
Jason asked for any other addtions.
John Festa: You took [care of] two of them. John Festa thought that e-mail addresses should be posted.
The other thing I would like to see is for us to record our own meetings. I would like to put our meeting on our website.
Jason asked about cost, a one-time cost.
John Festa: About $350 one-time cost. [Blogger: I cannot imagine there not being a monthly fee for the person behind the camera.]
John Festa, continuing: I think it is about time we did that. All of that information will be provided by the township and the township will own the information. [Blogger's emphasis.]
I know from talking with Brent Simon that self-administration is not a good thing. He does not want just anybody going on and adding things. But we ought to be able to have a place where we can put things on. We need to update things more quickly. The calendar is not up to date. The minutes are slow.
Vic had no changes and said he would explain later.
Marie: We should hear from Sue. [This was the rental report.]
John Festa asked about minutes from the Zoning Commission.
Sue Skrovan, ZC secretary: We have not met since the last meeting.
John Festa: We don't have one from February or March.
Sue: The minutes from February and March have to be approved. That will happen on the 10th.
Jason asked for any other old business. Vic said he had some information, but it was not complete.
Public Comment began at 9:25. That will be a separate post. An executive session followed the recess for paying the bills, and information about Jason's contacts with Moody & Nolan was to be presented after public comment--an arrangement which your blogger sees as a way of avoiding comment upon that issue.
Old Business: Township Hall Updates:
Vic: No updates, but I would like to get this fire escape off and for the trustees to set a meeting so we can go through the estimates and get a handle on what we need. We should do a walk-around and go through the quotes.
John Festa: I would like to take a look at it. I think we should take a look before we . . . .
Vic: When do you want to do that?
Jason: Next Thursday at 6 p.m.
At this point, Dawn Pechman, who had been standing in the kitchenette with the lights off, came up closer to the front of the room and interrupted by asking if this was a special meeting. I think she also said something about not being able to hear what was being said.
Vic: We are talking about this building.
Dawn: Questioned that. Then: So you can paint it?
John Festa: We have not made a decision about which way we are going. [!!!]
Marie asked Jason to advertise the meeting; he would do that.
Jason or Marie said that there was also another meeting [zoning commission] at the Township Hall at 7:30 that same evening.
Then there was discussion about the Bogden rental and mess left at the annex around Halloween last year.
It is still in the hands of the insurance company; nothing has come back.
Jason: So at the next meeting we either decide about small claims court or dropping it.
John Festa: Internet at the school.
I have some new proposals. Time Warner Cable can/will provide Internet and Wi-Fi for $50/month if we bundle the telephones with them. As far as the telephones are concerned, this is not cable based but will come over the telephone lines. All [companies] use the same lines. Time Warner Cable has offered us the same numbers and three lines--the fiscal officer, sexton, and fax--with unlimited local and long distance, caller ID, and voice mail. $139.97/month, plus tax and fees. There is a one-time installation charge of $254.
We are also getting 7 megs of Internet service, which is very good.
[Blogger: From here, it sounded as if everyone was discussing things they know well, but the pieces did not make a whole lot of sense to me. What follows is from my notes.]
Marie: $54.60/month for Internet, including all; that is sort of bundled with the Zoning Inspector's phone.
[Then there were the following numbers: $54.60; $9.30; $160.00. Total: $250.12.
Vic: Another line goes in there at a special rate--that is for the furnace and should stay.
John Festa: What exactly do we pay every month for phone service? [Blogger: The trustees sign the bills every month, and this phone/Internet project has belonged to John Festa all along. He has to ask this?]
Answer, probably from Marie: $360.99 for Township Hall, school, security, garage, cemetery phone and fax for me, and phone and fax there. [Blogger: Not sure where "there" is.]
$460/month.
Jason: That line still has to have a phone number.
Marie: The two heating control phones are $30.37/month [each, I believe--blogger.]
Vic: There have been some complaints about bundling.
John Festa took issue with that.
Vic: Al of the rooms are wired for cable.
John Festa: Made a motion to have Time Warner Cable provide service for 3 phones and high-speed Internet for 139.97/month plus tax and fees. In addition, a cost of $254 for a one-time installation charge for Internet and phone.
Jason: Seconded. Vic clarified the numbers: 274-8443, 8447,. and 8882. [Blogger: My notes have a question mark over the last number. It should be posted on the Township's official website once the service has been installed, if not already there.]
Motion passed unanimously.
Other Old Business: Jason said that the website had been talked about at the last meeting and asked for updates or changes.
He had one: Financial information. Marie can get that information and the yearly budgetary information.
To Vic: Jason asked about a photograph, which Vic said he will get.
[Note: No photographs of the zoning commission members are posted, the result of a unanimous decision by the commission.]
Jason asked for any other addtions.
John Festa: You took [care of] two of them. John Festa thought that e-mail addresses should be posted.
The other thing I would like to see is for us to record our own meetings. I would like to put our meeting on our website.
Jason asked about cost, a one-time cost.
John Festa: About $350 one-time cost. [Blogger: I cannot imagine there not being a monthly fee for the person behind the camera.]
John Festa, continuing: I think it is about time we did that. All of that information will be provided by the township and the township will own the information. [Blogger's emphasis.]
I know from talking with Brent Simon that self-administration is not a good thing. He does not want just anybody going on and adding things. But we ought to be able to have a place where we can put things on. We need to update things more quickly. The calendar is not up to date. The minutes are slow.
Vic had no changes and said he would explain later.
Marie: We should hear from Sue. [This was the rental report.]
John Festa asked about minutes from the Zoning Commission.
Sue Skrovan, ZC secretary: We have not met since the last meeting.
John Festa: We don't have one from February or March.
Sue: The minutes from February and March have to be approved. That will happen on the 10th.
Jason asked for any other old business. Vic said he had some information, but it was not complete.
Public Comment began at 9:25. That will be a separate post. An executive session followed the recess for paying the bills, and information about Jason's contacts with Moody & Nolan was to be presented after public comment--an arrangement which your blogger sees as a way of avoiding comment upon that issue.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Trustees April 3--Roads, Cemetery, Vets' Memorial, Old Business
Foreword: This post will also be a combination of summary and detail, both identified.
The following is summary.
Sexton's Report, Jim Aldrich: Cemetery foundation fees: $270.00
Burial fees: $2100.00 [I think.]
Grave sales: $440.00
Jim mentioned the signs and some other items, including the amount of the estimate from Ken Roby, the blacksmith on Taylor May Road. Jim said the foundations to be done will cost the township under $1,000. He commented on how well things had gone in the cemetery despite the winter and thanked the road crew. Clean up has started already, and there were to be 3 funerals the week of April 3. The excavator has been a big help.
John Festa and Jason both thanked everyone connected with the signs and working on the cemetery.
Road Report, Brian Tayerle: Brian commented on how pleasant it has been working with Jim and reported that the flower baskets have been delivered to Urban Growers and will be ready by mid May. In the shop, all three furnaces are up and running now, and an air line has been made functional.
Pioneer Trail east of Sheldon has been looked at by Chagrin River Watershed Partners. Cost of fixing it so that the area will no longer erode is estimated at about $1500. The work will take about two days.
There was some more discussion about that with Brian, Jason, and Vic on some of the details.
Brian said that, weather permitting, they would like to finish the ditch enclosures. He also reported on meeting with Seal Master with Vic and Shalersville Township. The intention is to work on crack sealing certain roads in both townships, with the crews working together. The work takes three guys and one for traffic control. Brian also mentioned investigating whether it might be more economical to pay Crack Sealers to do the job, especially if anything goes wrong.
Vic thought it was something to look at to see if we can share services with Shalersville and that the meeting seemed to go well, although he was not able to be there for all of it.
Brian: I think we can handle it.
Jason mentioned having a list of roads for crack seal and chip and seal and what is in the offing for road work and spending the money allocated for that.
Brian said that they have put down nearly 15 tons of patch already.. He also mentioned getting about five sweatshirts for each of the crew in safety yellow at a cost of about $20 each.
Jason made a motion to do that; seconded; passed unanimously.
John Festa mentioned that as soon as the temperature got up to 55 degrees, he had heard from Mrs. Maynard on Skinner about fixing the transition between her driveway and the road. It has been over two years since these discussions began.
Vic was concerned about a concrete transition, which has been mentioned, catching on the snowplow and lifting in the winter.
John Festa asked about the garage work and was informed that Brian and Dan had done all the work. He added that the grates in the garage are still a hazard and then thanked Brian and Dan for their work.
The following is exactly from my notes, more detailed than a summary but not a court reporter's transcript.
Veterans' Memorial, Frank Horack, chair: We have to install the plaques and some fresh brick and some striping. We are making preparations for the dedication. With your permission, I would like to have Matt Parsons give a presentation.
Matt: It is not really a presentation. We are going forward. The plaques will be in by Memorial Day. We have the American Legion, VFW, Fire Department, and band lined up. There will be a formal announcement to the trustees and something in the paper.
Jason asked about the time.
Matt: It depends on when they finish at the Village. I hope to have something by the next meeting.'
Jason: One of the things I had on the agenda--I have come to this event every year. It has been a community event and means a lot to the community. I don't think we do a good job of advertising this. Does anyone know of other publications where it is a big deal?
Vic: They put it into the two small papers. I think the band goes from Mantua Village to here and then to Hiram.
Matt: As far as the advertising, there will be plenty this year. If you are looking for a cost saving, it won't be much. [Blogger: I don't know whether this means that not much will be saved, or that the publicity won't cost much.]
Jason: Maybe a sign on the flagpole green or near the road.
John Festa picked up on something he had forgotten and mentioned two manuals that Brian could take with him that night. There was some joshing about Brian going right home to read both of them through, all 2-1/2 inches thick, each.
New Business came next.
The following is summary.
There was discussion about the V-plow which had been used on the snow plow. Jason reported that he had gotten an offer of $1750.
It took one motion to dispose of the plow and a second one to sell it to Denmark [?] Township. Both motions were seconded and passed unanimously.
Shredding Day and Township Cleanup: The proposed date for the shredding day is May 24 from 9-12noon at no cost to township residents. The township will pay about $100/hour to InfoShred. There was a little discussion about the ad for that.
Clean up day is May 3, Saturday. As part of the cleanup, there again will be a tire pickup. Two dumpsters will be provided by Portage County Recycling. There was a question and some discussion about how that would be advertised, and who would do it.
Marie pointed out that May 24 is the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.
John Festa brought up the insurance training workshops that are mandatory. They are 2-hour workshops and attending them lowers our insurance premiums. He said that he will be going to one in Strongsville; if it is mandatory, he will go. Cost is $40.00.
[Blogger: I did not follow the lead-in to John Festa's next remarks.}
John Festa mentioned something about committees and how many there are and that there had been an audit at the Fire Department on the committee meeting[s] and that there will be one each quarter. John Festa also said something about the fire board, training, and quarterly meetings being required. It sounded as if John Festa thought that it would be a good thing to have quarterly meetings with the trustees and the fire board.
[Blogger: This may have been much clearer to someone thoroughly familiar with the fire department and fire board, as Marie would be from having been the MSFD fiscal officer for a number of years. The summary above may not be too clear, but neither are my notes, which I believe are pretty close to verbatim.]
Vic: Fence for the foul lines, Crestwood Pony Tail League. He had gotten two prices, and the league had made an offer to pick up a portion of the cost.
What follows is all of my notes on this and two other topics.
Jason: What do you guys think fair payment would be?
Vic: We have no money set aside for capital improvements and we have to look for a lot of money. At this time I would not be willing to do more than 1/3.
Jason: I think it was a generous offer on their part and we sould add something.
Vic: Made a motion to accept the Crestwood Ponytail League offer to contract to add to the foul line fences, the township to pay 1/3 of the cost--$277.65--or 1/3 of $832.65. Jason seconded. Unanimous.
Vic, continuing: Spring Cleanup: Everybody has confirmed for May 3 There will be .9 dumpsters from Republic, which will start to be delivered on Thursday night, finish on Friday, and remove all on MOnday.
Vic, next: A letter from ODOT about a pre-construction meeting. It is about paving. They can not tell me what 12 mile portion of SR 82 they are going to pave. They sent it to the Town Hall address. The meeting is in Akron.
David Wright [?] signed the letter and used to be the engineer for this area. I talked to him and another gentleman about the bridge work and how it would cut us off. He asked if I had seen the drawings. It will be a bridge, not just a culvert. He can not refer me to anyone I can talk to, but he is sending me the whole project book so we can see what isd involved. It is a total bridge replacement in June.
He expects it to sell by May 15, but they may not award the contract until the end of may.
Vic, continuing: About SR 82--some of it will go into Mahoning County.
John Festa: According to the website, it will go from SR 44 to Mahoning County. What John Festa rad indicated that the bridge [in Mantua, I believe] would be a 75-day project.
Jason: SR 44 will be repaved/resurvaced from 303 to Prospect Street.
John Festa: And they will put in sidewalks.
[Blogger: Some of this project--the sidewalks, especially--are part of a grant that the DMRC and Mantua Village got to develop a streetscape that will create an attractive entrance to the Village. The DMRC was the entity that provided the matching funds that were required to seek the grant.]
Vic: The salt bid has been sent. Vic gave the original to Marie and copies to Jason and John Festa.
Vic: Next, review the equipment bid. He gave copies to the other two trustees. Everything is the same as last year's advertising except we deleted some of the smaller equipment and left the bigger equipment on..
Jason: It is very expensive to run the ad because of t he number of amount of words. IN the past we have run it Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
Vic: That is why I did not put any dates down.
Jason: Thought those three days sounded OK. The dates are April 12, 13, 14.
There was some discussion about the wording of the ad.
Blogger: That's all for now, folks. This has not been proofread for typographical errors, other than what I catch in process.
The following is summary.
Sexton's Report, Jim Aldrich: Cemetery foundation fees: $270.00
Burial fees: $2100.00 [I think.]
Grave sales: $440.00
Jim mentioned the signs and some other items, including the amount of the estimate from Ken Roby, the blacksmith on Taylor May Road. Jim said the foundations to be done will cost the township under $1,000. He commented on how well things had gone in the cemetery despite the winter and thanked the road crew. Clean up has started already, and there were to be 3 funerals the week of April 3. The excavator has been a big help.
John Festa and Jason both thanked everyone connected with the signs and working on the cemetery.
Road Report, Brian Tayerle: Brian commented on how pleasant it has been working with Jim and reported that the flower baskets have been delivered to Urban Growers and will be ready by mid May. In the shop, all three furnaces are up and running now, and an air line has been made functional.
Pioneer Trail east of Sheldon has been looked at by Chagrin River Watershed Partners. Cost of fixing it so that the area will no longer erode is estimated at about $1500. The work will take about two days.
There was some more discussion about that with Brian, Jason, and Vic on some of the details.
Brian said that, weather permitting, they would like to finish the ditch enclosures. He also reported on meeting with Seal Master with Vic and Shalersville Township. The intention is to work on crack sealing certain roads in both townships, with the crews working together. The work takes three guys and one for traffic control. Brian also mentioned investigating whether it might be more economical to pay Crack Sealers to do the job, especially if anything goes wrong.
Vic thought it was something to look at to see if we can share services with Shalersville and that the meeting seemed to go well, although he was not able to be there for all of it.
Brian: I think we can handle it.
Jason mentioned having a list of roads for crack seal and chip and seal and what is in the offing for road work and spending the money allocated for that.
Brian said that they have put down nearly 15 tons of patch already.. He also mentioned getting about five sweatshirts for each of the crew in safety yellow at a cost of about $20 each.
Jason made a motion to do that; seconded; passed unanimously.
John Festa mentioned that as soon as the temperature got up to 55 degrees, he had heard from Mrs. Maynard on Skinner about fixing the transition between her driveway and the road. It has been over two years since these discussions began.
Vic was concerned about a concrete transition, which has been mentioned, catching on the snowplow and lifting in the winter.
John Festa asked about the garage work and was informed that Brian and Dan had done all the work. He added that the grates in the garage are still a hazard and then thanked Brian and Dan for their work.
The following is exactly from my notes, more detailed than a summary but not a court reporter's transcript.
Veterans' Memorial, Frank Horack, chair: We have to install the plaques and some fresh brick and some striping. We are making preparations for the dedication. With your permission, I would like to have Matt Parsons give a presentation.
Matt: It is not really a presentation. We are going forward. The plaques will be in by Memorial Day. We have the American Legion, VFW, Fire Department, and band lined up. There will be a formal announcement to the trustees and something in the paper.
Jason asked about the time.
Matt: It depends on when they finish at the Village. I hope to have something by the next meeting.'
Jason: One of the things I had on the agenda--I have come to this event every year. It has been a community event and means a lot to the community. I don't think we do a good job of advertising this. Does anyone know of other publications where it is a big deal?
Vic: They put it into the two small papers. I think the band goes from Mantua Village to here and then to Hiram.
Matt: As far as the advertising, there will be plenty this year. If you are looking for a cost saving, it won't be much. [Blogger: I don't know whether this means that not much will be saved, or that the publicity won't cost much.]
Jason: Maybe a sign on the flagpole green or near the road.
John Festa picked up on something he had forgotten and mentioned two manuals that Brian could take with him that night. There was some joshing about Brian going right home to read both of them through, all 2-1/2 inches thick, each.
New Business came next.
The following is summary.
There was discussion about the V-plow which had been used on the snow plow. Jason reported that he had gotten an offer of $1750.
It took one motion to dispose of the plow and a second one to sell it to Denmark [?] Township. Both motions were seconded and passed unanimously.
Shredding Day and Township Cleanup: The proposed date for the shredding day is May 24 from 9-12noon at no cost to township residents. The township will pay about $100/hour to InfoShred. There was a little discussion about the ad for that.
Clean up day is May 3, Saturday. As part of the cleanup, there again will be a tire pickup. Two dumpsters will be provided by Portage County Recycling. There was a question and some discussion about how that would be advertised, and who would do it.
Marie pointed out that May 24 is the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.
John Festa brought up the insurance training workshops that are mandatory. They are 2-hour workshops and attending them lowers our insurance premiums. He said that he will be going to one in Strongsville; if it is mandatory, he will go. Cost is $40.00.
[Blogger: I did not follow the lead-in to John Festa's next remarks.}
John Festa mentioned something about committees and how many there are and that there had been an audit at the Fire Department on the committee meeting[s] and that there will be one each quarter. John Festa also said something about the fire board, training, and quarterly meetings being required. It sounded as if John Festa thought that it would be a good thing to have quarterly meetings with the trustees and the fire board.
[Blogger: This may have been much clearer to someone thoroughly familiar with the fire department and fire board, as Marie would be from having been the MSFD fiscal officer for a number of years. The summary above may not be too clear, but neither are my notes, which I believe are pretty close to verbatim.]
Vic: Fence for the foul lines, Crestwood Pony Tail League. He had gotten two prices, and the league had made an offer to pick up a portion of the cost.
What follows is all of my notes on this and two other topics.
Jason: What do you guys think fair payment would be?
Vic: We have no money set aside for capital improvements and we have to look for a lot of money. At this time I would not be willing to do more than 1/3.
Jason: I think it was a generous offer on their part and we sould add something.
Vic: Made a motion to accept the Crestwood Ponytail League offer to contract to add to the foul line fences, the township to pay 1/3 of the cost--$277.65--or 1/3 of $832.65. Jason seconded. Unanimous.
Vic, continuing: Spring Cleanup: Everybody has confirmed for May 3 There will be .9 dumpsters from Republic, which will start to be delivered on Thursday night, finish on Friday, and remove all on MOnday.
Vic, next: A letter from ODOT about a pre-construction meeting. It is about paving. They can not tell me what 12 mile portion of SR 82 they are going to pave. They sent it to the Town Hall address. The meeting is in Akron.
David Wright [?] signed the letter and used to be the engineer for this area. I talked to him and another gentleman about the bridge work and how it would cut us off. He asked if I had seen the drawings. It will be a bridge, not just a culvert. He can not refer me to anyone I can talk to, but he is sending me the whole project book so we can see what isd involved. It is a total bridge replacement in June.
He expects it to sell by May 15, but they may not award the contract until the end of may.
Vic, continuing: About SR 82--some of it will go into Mahoning County.
John Festa: According to the website, it will go from SR 44 to Mahoning County. What John Festa rad indicated that the bridge [in Mantua, I believe] would be a 75-day project.
Jason: SR 44 will be repaved/resurvaced from 303 to Prospect Street.
John Festa: And they will put in sidewalks.
[Blogger: Some of this project--the sidewalks, especially--are part of a grant that the DMRC and Mantua Village got to develop a streetscape that will create an attractive entrance to the Village. The DMRC was the entity that provided the matching funds that were required to seek the grant.]
Vic: The salt bid has been sent. Vic gave the original to Marie and copies to Jason and John Festa.
Vic: Next, review the equipment bid. He gave copies to the other two trustees. Everything is the same as last year's advertising except we deleted some of the smaller equipment and left the bigger equipment on..
Jason: It is very expensive to run the ad because of t he number of amount of words. IN the past we have run it Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
Vic: That is why I did not put any dates down.
Jason: Thought those three days sounded OK. The dates are April 12, 13, 14.
There was some discussion about the wording of the ad.
Blogger: That's all for now, folks. This has not been proofread for typographical errors, other than what I catch in process.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Trustees April 3; Zoning Inspector & a Violation Resolution
Blogger Foreword: Some of this post will be summary and some will be detailed. I will make sure to indicate which it is. My judgment as to what is most relevant to most people determines the approach.
Fiscal Officer: The final budget report is through the state UAN and takes a long time. Marie will not be available to do that immediately.
Summary:
Zoning inspector: $190 in permits.
Discussion and concern about junk vehicles and agricultural buildings continue.
John Dickey suggested a couple of resolutions concerning zoning for the trustees to look at. The thrust seems to be enforcement and quicker action by the zoning inspector. The language for the suggestion(s ) comes from Mahoning County.
[Blogger: To me, two things seem apparent: First, there is a push for much more control of what we do with our lives and property than in the past. Second, presenting resolutions to the trustees puts them in charge of zoning and removes the zoning commission. The Assistant County Prosecutor has recommended that zoning and the trustees be separated from each other until the zoning commission or BZA recommends an action.]
Detailed:
Jason: Have you talked about this with Chris Meduri?
John Dickey: Yes. He says they are viable codes (?) and action must be done exactly by the law.
Vic: I talked with Chris Meduri the last time this was brought up. This is outside of our zoning resolution and puts it to the trustees. It is very close to a taking if it is not done right. If you take it [property] and they fight you, you are going to lose and the township is going to pay. Not too many people like that law because it is so close to a taking.
John Dickey: That is why all five options are there. In our zoning regulations you can take them to court.
Vic: What I don't see here is the requirements that have to be met.
John Dickey: All requirements were sent to all of the trustees.
Vic: This can be reversed on the township very easily. In Columbus one of the things that came up is that a lot of people are going after the zoning inspectors and they (ZI's) are not winning.
[Blogger: When Vic goes to Columbus to a conference, he goes to sessions that deal with legal issues and how to govern. Maybe Jason does that, too, but what I remember him talking about after a conference is the new equipment.]
Jason: This is just in connection to motor vehicles.
John Dickey: Just vehicles, including trailers, because they are licensed.
John Festa: If we do not approve this, what other means of enforcement do we have? [Blogger's emphasis. This seems to be a theme of John Festa's: control and enforcement.]
John Dickey: Right now we send a certified letter and within 30 days it goes to Portage County court. [Then there is a 15-day period. Blogger: This is the note I have, not a verbatim sentence. Therefore, the brackets.] Then a resolution must be made. It goes to court and it goes to civil prosecution.
[ Blogger: The above procedure was described, I believe, by Chris Meduri as due process, which people must be allowed to have. Due process seems to be too slow for the present board of trustees.]
John Festa asked if we had sent out any yet.
John Dickey: Not for cars yet. I must have proof that the vehicle has been there for over 45 days. Pictures date stamped are necessary. We must have positive proof if it is contested. Proof of license and insurance must be given.
John Festa asked about complaints, and John Dickey replied that there had only been phone calls., no written statements.
John Festa: I am sure it needs to be addressed.
Summary:
There was further discussion and details about a property on Timber Trail and things being stored in cargo trailers there. A large piece of equipment is also parked on the property.
John Festa: This is in a gray area in the zoning book.
Jason read the resolution, identifying the property and the nature of the violation(s). The resolution included directing the Portage County Prosecuting Attorney [I think that's correct] to take necessary action. Jason asked for someone to make the motion. John Festa did so, Jason seconded, and it passed unanimously.
Fiscal Officer: The final budget report is through the state UAN and takes a long time. Marie will not be available to do that immediately.
Summary:
Zoning inspector: $190 in permits.
Discussion and concern about junk vehicles and agricultural buildings continue.
John Dickey suggested a couple of resolutions concerning zoning for the trustees to look at. The thrust seems to be enforcement and quicker action by the zoning inspector. The language for the suggestion(s ) comes from Mahoning County.
[Blogger: To me, two things seem apparent: First, there is a push for much more control of what we do with our lives and property than in the past. Second, presenting resolutions to the trustees puts them in charge of zoning and removes the zoning commission. The Assistant County Prosecutor has recommended that zoning and the trustees be separated from each other until the zoning commission or BZA recommends an action.]
Detailed:
Jason: Have you talked about this with Chris Meduri?
John Dickey: Yes. He says they are viable codes (?) and action must be done exactly by the law.
Vic: I talked with Chris Meduri the last time this was brought up. This is outside of our zoning resolution and puts it to the trustees. It is very close to a taking if it is not done right. If you take it [property] and they fight you, you are going to lose and the township is going to pay. Not too many people like that law because it is so close to a taking.
John Dickey: That is why all five options are there. In our zoning regulations you can take them to court.
Vic: What I don't see here is the requirements that have to be met.
John Dickey: All requirements were sent to all of the trustees.
Vic: This can be reversed on the township very easily. In Columbus one of the things that came up is that a lot of people are going after the zoning inspectors and they (ZI's) are not winning.
[Blogger: When Vic goes to Columbus to a conference, he goes to sessions that deal with legal issues and how to govern. Maybe Jason does that, too, but what I remember him talking about after a conference is the new equipment.]
Jason: This is just in connection to motor vehicles.
John Dickey: Just vehicles, including trailers, because they are licensed.
John Festa: If we do not approve this, what other means of enforcement do we have? [Blogger's emphasis. This seems to be a theme of John Festa's: control and enforcement.]
John Dickey: Right now we send a certified letter and within 30 days it goes to Portage County court. [Then there is a 15-day period. Blogger: This is the note I have, not a verbatim sentence. Therefore, the brackets.] Then a resolution must be made. It goes to court and it goes to civil prosecution.
[ Blogger: The above procedure was described, I believe, by Chris Meduri as due process, which people must be allowed to have. Due process seems to be too slow for the present board of trustees.]
John Festa asked if we had sent out any yet.
John Dickey: Not for cars yet. I must have proof that the vehicle has been there for over 45 days. Pictures date stamped are necessary. We must have positive proof if it is contested. Proof of license and insurance must be given.
John Festa asked about complaints, and John Dickey replied that there had only been phone calls., no written statements.
John Festa: I am sure it needs to be addressed.
Summary:
There was further discussion and details about a property on Timber Trail and things being stored in cargo trailers there. A large piece of equipment is also parked on the property.
John Festa: This is in a gray area in the zoning book.
Jason read the resolution, identifying the property and the nature of the violation(s). The resolution included directing the Portage County Prosecuting Attorney [I think that's correct] to take necessary action. Jason asked for someone to make the motion. John Festa did so, Jason seconded, and it passed unanimously.
Monday, April 7, 2014
A Correction
In the post titled "A Not-So-Quick Pass at a Box Score 3-20-14," there was an error.
The discussion about the signs for the cemetery contained this comment, in brackets to indicate that it was my insertion:
[The work (sandblasting) was done by the blacksmith on Taylor May Road.]
That was an assumption I made based on the discussion. Here is a transcript of the relevant section of the discussion between Larry Leitzow and Jason Carlton:
"Jason: The originals were basically . . . .
"Larry: Trash. Jim took care of that with the guy on Taylor May Road. So I don't know anything about it. I don't even know how much it was."
[Blogger: More information on this came out at the April 3 meeting.]
The discussion about the signs for the cemetery contained this comment, in brackets to indicate that it was my insertion:
[The work (sandblasting) was done by the blacksmith on Taylor May Road.]
That was an assumption I made based on the discussion. Here is a transcript of the relevant section of the discussion between Larry Leitzow and Jason Carlton:
"Jason: The originals were basically . . . .
"Larry: Trash. Jim took care of that with the guy on Taylor May Road. So I don't know anything about it. I don't even know how much it was."
[Blogger: More information on this came out at the April 3 meeting.]
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